As we have become accustomed to here on UMSF, the Rovers have reached another incredible milestone.Today (tosol), the Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit' has been operating on the red planet for 2000 Sols.

To celebrate, here are a few logos, desktops and a poster for you to download and enjoy.The poster features another brilliant work of prose from our UMSF 'Poet Dude' Stuart Atkinson and a big credit to James Canvin for the Calypso Pan (with some Astro0 enhancements ). You guys rock!

Poster:

There's also a full-size 4.5mb version of the poster over at my blog.Plus a 16.2mb version to download for the brave.

I also wanted to take this opportunity (no pun intended) to congratulate once again, everyone who works so hard on the Mars Rover mission.The team currently working tirelessly on the effort to FREE SPIRIT and the Opportunity mission planners examing every exquisite detail of the Block Island meteorite. The science teams studying the soils of Troy, the imaging teams taking stunning panoramas and the drivers and engineers who keep these vehicles exploring.

To all of you - THANKS!

None of us five and half years ago could have imagined that these two astounding vehicles would still be exploring the red planet after 2000 Sols. What a ride!Over those years, many of you on the Rover team have become valued contributors to UMSF as well as good friends. You have lectured, blogged and twittered (tweeted) and emailed and given all of us an amazing insight into your mission.

Most incredible of all is that you have let UMSF'ers contribute to the Rover adventure in a variety of ways.Yes, at times we have been nagging 'backseat drivers', but you know it's all been done with good intentions.

To Steve Squyres, let me say a special thanks...Your dream to explore a distant world, born from an afternoon of looking over the dusty prints of Mars images from earlier missions, has, so many years later, not only changed your life but totally transformed ours

Also, your vision and that of Jim Bell and others, to take the unprecedented step to share Spirit & Opportunity's images as they arrive on Earth, was to say the least an enormous leap of faith. Trusting the public to take those images and hope they would create and share those images for education, outreach and just pure enjoyment. I know that it has affected my life and the life, nights and days of everyone on UMSF.

I know that he would do it eventually, but I thought it worth posting Stu's poem which features on the poster. Enjoy

2K

This morning, yawning as I wokeFrom another Troy-trapped nightI watched Sol rise for the 2000th timeAnd wondered: “Was it all a dream?”Did I really climb the scree-streakedSide of Husband Hill? Did one night I thrillTo the sight of shooting stars and two Silvery moons fleeing across the sky? Did I Drag my ruined wheel for mile after endless mile,Ploughing a ragged furrow through Barsoom’sCinnamon-dusted crust before DoomCaught up with me and left me stranded Here, impatient in this pit of ancient sand?

When I arrived, falling out of the salmon-Hued sky, trailing a flapping banner of flame And fury, a backshelled-Beowulf, none on EarthThought I Would survive even a hundred nights -Yet, here I am, alive, after two thousand!True, I cannot move, and my horizon has Not changed for what seems like an eternityBut I can still see, and there is beauty in everyRock, and stone, sliver, slice and shelf of shaleAround me. And if I am fated to standAt this wind-whipped, stony place, statue-Still, until only ghostly traces of my gracelessLines remain then so be it; I will not rageAgainst the end of my days, I have seen More wonders than I dared dream I would,And I have always known that every turn Of my wheels was carrying me closer toThe End.

They will send others after me – Bigger, bolder, more capable machines – But I will always be The First,The one that faced and overcame the worstThat Mars could do and made the oldWorld New again for millions watchingBack on Earth. That was my worth – the rebirth Of the Red Planet in the minds of restless men. I’ll be forgotten, that is the way of things, but when,One day, I’m found, and the so-long silent hills Of Gusev ring to the sound of celebratory “She’s here!”Cheers, they’ll speak my name again..!

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